Fraser Brown: Glasgow Warriors-Edinburgh is landmark occasion for women's rugby and I'm proud to be part of it

I think it’s brilliant that Scottish Rugby has used this as an opportunity to immerse our two women’s teams in the professional set-ups

Saturday will be a landmark occasion for women’s rugby in Scotland as Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors meet at Hive Stadium.

The creation of two new semi-professional women’s teams and their alignment to the existing clubs is a hugely exciting development and I feel privileged to be involved. My role’s pretty simple – I look after the Glasgow defence which is something the girls in the team have been pretty honest about, saying that it hasn't been a big coaching focus at some of their clubs. For the last couple of years I have been working with Glasgow and Scottish rugby planning for my post playing career and my involvement with the women’s team is hopefully a good opportunity to improve the girls in the group as well as giving me the chance to develop as a coach.

The two Scottish teams will take part in the Celtic Challenge along with Irish and Welsh sides, who have gone down a different route by creating new teams. Now, I can only speak on behalf of Glasgow but I think it’s brilliant that Scottish Rugby has used this as an opportunity to immerse our two women’s teams in the professional set-ups that are already there.

Fraser Brown, far left, is part of the Glasgow Warriors women's coaching set up alongside Chris Laidlaw, Lindsey Smith and Stuart Lewis.

To reiterate, it’s not a women’s team in Glasgow, it’s the Glasgow Warriors women’s team. It’s the same kit, same branding, all the backroom staff are the same. Both teams are aligned in how we want to play as well as the values and culture that we share as a squad. There are current players from the men’s team on the coaching staff, we’ve got other Glasgow Warriors staff on the coaching team, we share the same media team and take part in joint team meetings. It’s been done really well and it’s an exciting opportunity and expands Glasgow as a club rather than creating a separate team in the city.

It’s the first ever Glasgow Warriors women’s team and the energy in the room on the first night we got together was incredible. All the women involved are genuinely excited to be there, to be part of something new and create some history for the club. They are all eager to learn, they take on information very quickly and they’re very keen to go out and represent the club.

A lot of the players we are working with are around the 18-23 age group. Some have played rugby for a long time and some are relatively new to the sport and so there is a variety in knowledge across the group but our job as coaches is to introduce them to a higher level of rugby than they are used to at their clubs and improve them as players. There is an added pressure that comes with a higher level of performance as well as a greater expectation around analysis, recovery, preparation to perform. The best will thrive and move on to even higher levels within the game.

The aim, obviously, is to win. That’s the same in any sport, whether it’s professional or semi-professional. But that can’t be the be all and end all. The goal is to develop 30 rugby players and make them a team and also much better players.

We’ve got access to a couple of women from the international group but most of them are from club rugby and this is their first experience of a higher level of rugby. Now, if you compare that to some of the Welsh and Irish squads, they’ve got 50-times capped or more international players. We want to win and win every week but at the same time we’ll be going up against squads who have much more strength in depth and more experience. So the aim is to develop better rugby players and for them to enjoy being at a higher level and experience higher expectations.The only way to grow the game, be it men or women, is to try to broaden the base and get as high a level of competition as possible and play with as many different girls and women as possible. Globally, I think women’s rugby has been the fastest growing sport since 2020. It’s the only sport that continued to see growth in terms of participation and investment during Covid, and that’s continued over the last couple of years. That’s been driven by the increase in playing numbers which has led to an increase in investment which in turn has increased playing numbers again which has driven up standards. As a sport, rugby is going through a particularly challenging time in terms of playing numbers and investment worldwide but women’s rugby is bucking that trend, albeit from a low base pre-2020. You can also see the potential commercial growth in women’s sport and in particular women’s rugby.Saturday’s Edinburgh v Glasgow match is being played at the Hive at noon, before the second leg of the men’s 1872 Cup at Murrayfield, so the alignment is good. It’ll be kicking off three hours before the men’s match so it’s been nicely packaged and it’s obviously during the festive period so the kids will be off school. Hopefully, it’ll be an attractive proposition for families to come out and watch two good rugby games in one afternoon.